


Final Opportunity

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:24:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5955268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they finally get a hit on Peter Hale’s location Malia knows that this is the day she’s going to be able to take him down. She deals with it surprisingly well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt I got ages ago: "If you die, I'm gonna kill you."

When Malia gets to the briefing room Allison and Lydia are already there, both engrossed in the files that are spread out all over the table.  
"Did you find him?" she asks. Allison raises her head, pulling down the hand she was resting her head on, out of her hair. She nods.  
For a few seconds Malia doesn't move. Lydia doesn't look up, her eyes open and fixed on the file in front of her. She doesn't appear to be blinking, as if she's afraid to.

"Where's Kira?" Malia asks. Her ankle touches Lydia's calf when she sits down and Lydia doesn't pull back so Malia doesn't either.  
"Running late," Allison says, drawing a final line under the notes on the pad in front of her.  
"She just sent off Scott, Derek, Isaac and Cora from the airport, so she has to drive all the way back."  
"Scott shouldn't have left," Lydia says, without looking up. Malia looks at her from the side, not bothering to hide the fact that she's searching for... some kind of emotion on Lydia's face. Aside from her clenched jaw she can't find any trace of reaction, though.  
It makes Malia's heart clench and her throat constrict, so she looks away.

"He's better off going after Deucalion right now."  
"Which means you didn't tell him," Lydia says and looks up for the first time since Malia has entered the room. Her leg is pressing against Malia's harder. Malia hooks her foot behind Lydia's ankle.  
"Lydia..." Allison says, making it sound like a plead without having the pathetic undertone to it that Malia knows so well from countless interrogations and missions gone south.  
"You should have told him..." Lydia pauses.  
" _We_ should have told _them_ , all of them, before they got on the plane."

"We can tell them when they get back and we actually have something to tell," Allison says, insistent.

Malia reaches over the table to grab the pictures that are laid out in order. She looks at the time stamps first. And tries to avoid thinking about what she has been doing while the pictures were taken, because there is _no point_ , she _knows_ this.  
(The stamp shows 8:17a.m., Malia remembers Lydia's skin under her fingers and the feeling of satisfaction when she was being pulled closer unconsciously.)

Her eyebrows lower dangerously when she looks at the sharp line of his jaw, his body angled away from the cameras in a way that suggests that he knows he's being observed but either in too much of a hurry or too arrogant to care.  
Malia's stomach churns. She looks away.

"So, what's the plan?" she asks and lets the glimmering, nauseating feeling in her chest simmer. She can now.  
"The plan is that there is no plan." Lydia's eyebrows are raised. There's a challenge in her voice but a general disapproval in her words.  
"The plan is to wait for Kira," Allison says, but she sounds reluctant, too. Malia guesses Allison is pretty tired of not getting to bust some heads over this as well.

"Then we have to check in with Braeden, she's already in town following the traces Peter's left." Malia frowns.  
"Peter doesn't leave traces," she says.  
"Today he does." Allison points to the pictures with her pen.  
"Maybe something happened to lure him out or maybe it's a trap, but this is the first sighting in three months, so I'm gonna take it either way.

"Still should have told Scott," Lydia mumbles, but not actually looking like she's trying to pick a fight. That's something Malia has had to learn, to not jump on every one of Lydia's jabs.  
"Why are they giving this case to us?" Malia asks. She knows she can handle it. She knows the others probably can, too. They shouldn't have to, but they can. That doesn't mean The Agency sees it the same way, though. In fact, this is the first time a mission that can in any way become personal for Malia hasn't been snatched away from under her nose.  
"Aren't we all emotionally compromised?"

"To be honest?" Allison says and starts stacking all the files. There aren't as many as Malia would like there to be. She knows for a fact that the file on her connection to Peter that is in the pile Allison is composing right now contains two photos and half a page of report.  
Lydia closes the file in front of her and slides it over to Allison.  
"I was against us taking this, but apparently there are no other agents who know this case well enough that are available."

"How can there be none available?" Malia asks, surprising herself with the irritation in her voice. She has dreamt of this mission for years now (literally) and now... Now all she can think about is the look on Lydia's face whenever she's confronted with anything concerning Peter, that far-away stare, that sometimes bleeds into something more vulnerable than Malia ever sees her, and sometimes hardens her features in a way Malia doesn't recognize.  
Now all she can think of is that she just finally, _finally_ wants to know that it's over, that they have him, that they can deal with their wounds instead of having to rip them open time and time again.

"What about Boyd and Erica?" she demands.  
"Still undercover," Allison says and continues when Malia opens her mouth again:  
"Braeden can't handle him alone, Derek and Cora are too close to this, Scott and Isaac both don't have all the expertise that is needed, and we can't very well let the puppies loose on this one."   
Malia thinks about being in the gym watching Brett and Liam trying to outdo each other in push-ups yesterday until they rolled around on the floor together while Mason took pictures with his phone and Hayden stood beside the mat, laughing.  
She supposes that Peter would probably get away from them if he had an actual ball and chain.

"I am not on civilian duty," she says.

*

Kira meets her in the gym.  
"Allison and Lydia are talking to Braeden," she says and smiles like she doesn't know what to say. Malia doesn't either, so she continues stretching silently. After she's stripped off her jacket Kira joins her on the mat.  
"Are you okay?" Kira starts by rolling her head from one side to the other and Malia's sitting on the ground to warm up her legs, so Malia doesn't have to look Kira in the eyes when she doesn't answer.  
"I mean, you don't have to tell me. Or anyone really, which is what you've been doing so far, but we're about to end this. Once and for all, hopefully, so I thought maybe you wanted to talk about it, because I know I'd be scared if I had to face something like this."

Malia backtracks.  
Sometimes she needs to remind herself that Kira is the outsider in this situation. The rest of them, Derek, Cora, Scott, Allison, Lydia, even Isaac, Erica and Boyd, have been violated by Peter in ways that have ingrained themselves in their lives until they don't even notice anymore that they're bleeding from the pain of it.  
And the only thing Malia has ever been able to do about the hurt is to stand up and take it.

Kira, however, didn't become a member of the Agency because she couldn't let go of her past. She has always genuinely believed in doing something good and being useful to other people. She still smiles whenever she sees that she helped someone.  
It is impossible to do this job without acquiring at least a few demons of your own, but Kira's are different. Malia doesn't think she'd understand and she isn't sure if she _wants_ Kira to understand.

So, she gets up and leans in. Kira immediately becomes wide-eyed. Malia briefly wonders if she noticed that her feet rooted themselves to the floor more firmly when Malia got up.  
"I'm not scared," she says.  
"I'm angry. And I want to end this today."

When she walks out of the gym without finishing her warm-up she realizes that she needed to hear herself say that just as much as Kira.

*

Allison doesn't say anything when Malia comes into the weapons room she's in, stepping out of the way for Director Argent who's just leaving, eyes grave as always.  
His daughter is bent over one of the tables she always keeps pedantically clean, denying Malia to see what she's doing.

When she looks up and flips her hair over her shoulder, she says:  
"Final briefing is in twenty minutes in the Director's office. After that we'll probably have about half an hour before we gear up, split up and head to Peter's location." She looks at Malia like that last part is supposed to have some kind of special meaning, but when Malia just says:  
"Okay," and nothing else, she doesn't keep pressing.

Malia watches her for a few moments, before she turns to her right. Allison's silence makes her wary, but then again Allison has never been a person who likes to get asked about her feelings just before a mission, so Malia opens one of the drawers.  
Her hand is wandering over the blades that are neatly sorted in two rows. She's sure that Allison is going to make her take at least one gun but they're both going to know that Malia would only pull it as her very last resort.  
Knives aren't necessarily her favorite thing either, but she prefers them to the cold rationality of a gun.

Malia tries not to get attached to her weapons like Kira or Erica or especially Allison. She already dwells enough on the past, reminders of what she's capable of aren't very welcome in her mind.  
She goes to sit down next to Allison to strap two knives onto both her legs and one to her wrist.  
"You do realize that my dad is going to take those from you as soon as you enter his office perimeters," Allison says without looking up from the parts of a disassembled gun in front of her. Malia sees the corners of her mouth quirking up.  
"Again."

"Yes, I know," Malia says. She pulls out one of the blades strapped to her leg.  
"He never takes the sheaths, though, which means I'll keep the panic buttons." Allison doesn't look startled. She does put down the magazine she's been holding, though. When she turns to look at Malia her hair, not yet pulled back into the obligatory ponytail she wears when she goes into the field, falls over her shoulder.  
"You think Peter's going to take you? Or that he'll get away?"

Malia's shoulders rise and fall when she breathes in through her nose.  
"All I know is that I can't lose him again," she says and turns the flap of the sheath on her right ankle over to reveal the small green button.  
"I couldn't take it. If that means putting these to use, I'm going to take that risk."

Allison's eyes have the kind of gentle shine to it that Malia knows she'll never have. They're the eyes of someone who isn't completely hardened yet, despite having been through hell and back.  
"You should go talk to Lydia after the briefing," Allison says. And then:  
"Can you hand me two of the ring daggers?"

*

The briefing turns out to be very staright forward and short, mostly due to the fact.that every single person in the room knows what to expect. They've known for years now. All of them have waited for today, the eagerness to finally be able to say they've let it go buzzing under their skin.

Lydia leaves the room first, the sound of her heels meeting the ground familiar to Malia's ears.  
When Malia enters Lydia's lab three minutes later Lydia is pacing back and forth between tables with experiments on them that probably shouldn't be touched by anyone but Lydia in a stable mood.

"Lydia," Malia says, as if she can make Lydia listen if she puts enough conviction into it. Lydia turns on her heel (very literally) and Malia looks at her impassively, because she doesn't know what Lydia's thinking but she wants to. Right at this moment she catches herself thinking that she _should_ know what Lydia's thinking.  
"You can't die," Lydia says and like most things Lydia says it doesn't come out vulnerable. Her voice is wavering but her eyes are determined in a way that suggests extreme anxiety underneath. Malia has seen that expression before. Not in situations she likes to remember.

She takes a step towards Lydia and stops because she doesn't know how to handle this. She doesn't think her face is giving her away, but she has no idea what Lydia is thinking which means she can't adapt in her way of reacting.  
Lydia has about a thousand reasons for not wanting anyone she loves in the vicinity of Peter. There are about five reasons more for why she wouldn't want _Malia_ in the vicinity of Peter. There is one reason more why Malia is never going to let Peter get close to Lydia again.

She's not sure what Lydia's priority is right now at all.  
She takes another step forward and Lydia comes to her. Malia doesn't want to look anywhere else when Lydia comes so close that she can raise her hand up to touch the side of Malia's neck. She presses her lips together when she bows her head only to look up again.

"If you die," she says and her voice hitches but the fear in her eyes is gone now.  
"I'm gonna kill you."

Malia's forehead wrinkles.  
"No you won't," she says. Lydia's sigh almost sounds like a laugh when she drops her head, so Malia reaches out and straightens up her neck with one hand on Lydia's cheek.  
"I'm not gonna die," she says and surprises herself with the weight she says it with.

"Peter has always been out of our league," Lydia points out but she doesn't look away this time.  
"I can take it," Malia says and the thing is, at this point she is sure that she really _can_. "I can be pretty strong."

And Lydia's smile is feeble and weak, but it's sincere and Malia clings to it even when Lydia closes her eyes and Malia leans down to tip their foreheads together.

*

The door falls shut behind her with a click that sounds too soft to her ears. She drops her keys on the floor and doesn't flinch when they clatter too loudly, as metal falling onto wood does. She can't stop moving. She knows she should. She should be sinking to the ground. She should sigh and realize that she can finally let go now. She should go out onto the balcony and feel the relief wash over her in waves. She should get into bed and sleep it off. She should feel free of the burden that has weighed on her for so long now.

She doesn't do any of those things. Here is what she does do:  
She takes off her coat that hides her ripped clothes and her kevlar underneath.  
She unlaces her shoes.  
She dumps the weapons she's still carrying into the safe behind the bookshelf next to the coatrack.  
She rips off what's left of her shirt and lets it tumble to the ground.  
She fumbles with the fasteners of the kevlar, her hands shaking, until there's a second pair, beautifully unbruised, with fingers that slide between hers, that take the kevlar off so Malia's standing there in only her bra and her pants.

If she closes her eyes maybe she can pretend that this is just another evening at home, Lydia right behind her when they walk through the door and when they're getting ready to get into bed she can unbutton her own pants.  
But it's not. This is what happens:

She stands there with her eyes closed.  
She lets Lydia lead her to their bed.  
She gets under her blanket.  
She waits for Lydia to get in next to her.

She holds on for dear life.


End file.
